Interview with Gary Goetzman
Q: How big is this production?
GARY GOETZMAN: The Pacific is the biggest movie any of us have ever
worked on. Even though it will be broken into ten separate parts
when it plays on HBO, we really look at it like one huge motion
picture. Start to finish, none of us have ever worked on anything
bigger. Four years in development, almost a year of shooting; then
over a year of post-production, and six months of mixing. It was a
huge undertaking.
Q: Give a sense of what the story is to you.
GG: Well, The Pacific is a very different story from Band of
Brothers. These young men were in a much different situation then
the men we talked about in Band. In Band of Brothers there was
actually a goal they could see. They knew they were fighting the
Germans; they were trying to get to Berlin. They'd have difficult
battles some of which they lost, some of which they won. They could
see a progression of the war and where they were going, which gave
them a sense of succeeding even if they were very small steps. In
The Pacific, those boys and I call them boys because that's what
they were didn't have any sort of reward cycle. They would just be
on an island and they'd defend it, and hundreds, sometimes
thousands of lives would be lost. Then they'd move to another
island, then another island. They had no civilization around them.
They were just a bunch of guys waiting for an enemy that they knew
would kill themselves to kill them. And no real sense of reward at
the end. They just existed in this horrible cycle of wartime life.
I don't know how they all didn't go crazy. I think that's the big
difference between the war in Europe and the war in the
Pacific.
Q: How much of a responsibility do you feel to tell this
story as honestly as possible?
GG: We feel a great sense of responsibility. We assess things based
on, 'Is this the truth as told by somebody else?' 'Is it
third-person?' 'First-person?' We try to get the best information
we can get to respect the subject matter, to respect the Marines,
of course, and to tell the story as truthfully as we can. The truth
is always much more amazing than any story you can make up. I hope
we do them proud and that they'll feel we told the story that they
would expect us to tell.
Q: Talk about the cast.
GG: I think we are going to know about this group of actors for
years and years to come. I am so impressed with what they brought
to the project. Just their enthusiasm, how much they really care
about doing a great job and how much they want to be accurate to
the men they're representing. All these guys did that, and cared
about it, acted with passion, and took a lot of responsibility in
their performances.
Q: Specifically, who is this the story
about?
GG: We really centre on three men: Eugene Sledge, Robert Leckie and
John Basilone. We follow them primarily throughout our ten-part
miniseries. There are many other characters who go through this
horrible war with our three main guys. All great characters. A
terrific ensemble.
Q: How much reverence do the show creators have for the
source material?
GG: The source material is everything. And we owe a huge debt to
the men who wrote it. We always want to make sure that were
representing things as historically accurate as possible.
